V&A East Archive Report: Two 'New' Labyrinth Songs Discovered!
(Apologies for my long absence from any meaningful posting here - I'd run out of things to say for a long while, but my discoveries today warrant a return to the world of Labyrinth!)
I had a fascinating visit to the study room at the David Bowie Centre at V&A East today, where I requested all their papers relating to Jim Hensonâs Labyrinth. I made one particularly exciting discovery: two completely ânewâ songs Bowie wrote for the film.Â
I canât share the full lyrics for either song to avoid falling foul of copyright law, but the songs are titled âAll in Allâ and âCrystal Heartbeatâ. Both songs have full lyrics, and are written in Bowieâs own hand. If you want to access either lyric sheet, the V&A archive reference is DBA/4/1/14/2.
I enclose ânewâ with quotation marks very deliberately because I have the impression that these are both draft lyrics for what would become âAs the World Falls Downâ (âAll in Allâ) and âUndergroundâ (âCrystal Heartbeatâ). This is an educated guess on my part, but I believe itâs likely based on the lyrical evidence.Â
Like ATWFD, âAll in Allâ (27 lines) is a love song with a woozy feel - itâs bombastic and filled with grand romantic gestures, and literally quotes the phrase âin the heat of the morningâ (the title and refrain of an early Bowie song). IMHO, itâs easily the superior of the two ânewâ songs.Â
âAll in Allâ seems well-aligned with the more didactic early drafts of the âLabyrinthâ script, which was written by Terry Jones to present Jareth as a more straightforwardly manipulative trickster hiding beneath a facade of physical beauty. Itâs filled with Jarethâs overwrought declarations of love (unlikely as it may seem, his love is bigger than the sun that shines!) and invites Sarah to join him in a world of pretend. ATWFD is definitely better from a lyrical perspective, and certainly more nuanced, but 'All in All' isn't half bad.
âCrystal Heartbeatâ (23 lines) is simpler and less lyrically complex, and has a similar theme of being lost in the confusion of adolescence to âUndergroundâ. Itâs highly repetitive and feels like an up-tempo dance track (thus why I think itâs an early attempt at the main credits theme).âUndergroundâ is vastly superior from a lyrical perspective, so itâs easy to see why this draft was ditched.Â
There are also handwritten lyric sheets for âAs the World Falls Downâ and âMagic Danceâ (on the same sheet), âWithin Youâ and âUndergroundâ. These lyrics are mostly very similar or identical to the versions included in the film, though âMagic Danceâ has some interesting annotations on delivery (so âwhat could I doâ had âfunâ written in the margin).
The only song without handwritten lyrics is âChilly Downâ, though there are various storyboards and correspondence relating to that particular song in the archive. It was clearly one of the harder nuts to crack, given the technical complexity of the Fire Gang scene (with the puppets filmed against black velvet, and the sequence workshopped over many iterations).Â
The collection is fascinating and completely free to access (though you have to book!) and I canât recommend going along enough - I feel very lucky and privileged to have handled all of this with my own hands! You can contact the archive and book an appointment to see the collection for yourself here: https://vam.libanswers.com/archivesÂ
blakekathryn
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